End of Major Jam Production

Annie and I have finally decided to call an end to the major jam production for the year. After canning another 24 jars of jams and jelly this last session, we both came to the realization that we cannot eat and give away this much jam in a year. Therefore, there is only one more canning session for jams left this year due to my want for caramel apple jam. I am really excited about that one! We tried our hand at jelly for the first time, and while not totally clear due to only doing one pass through our "jelly socks" and squeezing for extra juice, I am still quite proud of the product. We chose to call it natural unfiltered jelly, which is kind of silly because jelly is supposed to be clear, but the tasty product we made cannot be beat! I would like to think Dan's apple picks are most of the reason why.

We started with six pounds of rough chopped apples, leaving the skins and cores intact. Next, we cooked the apples with some water. Meanwhile, Annie and I finished off her preparation of the pear and pinot noir jam.



It was quite tasty! We then moved back to the apple jelly. After the cook time was up, we placed the cooked down mush into a pair of clean nylon stocking. Now, you may be scratching your head at this, but there is a perfectly good explanation. I am somewhat cheap, and the jelly bags you can get at many stores are just a bit to expensive when I am trying to be extra thrifty, so the stockings and high necked faucets work just as well as the expensive jelly bag set ups.



The most important thing is to make sure your socks are clean. We washed this pair of hose before cutting them up and placing the food inside. We then hung them over catch bowls and went to get some lunch.





From there we took the collected juice and added our lemon juice and sugar and cooked it all down.



We canned that and moved on to the plum and the peach that I had prepped the night before. All in all we had 24 half pints at the end of the day. I was proud of how much we did in the little time we spent canning. I guess we have our system down now.

Today I hope to get some time in behind the sewing machine. The call of my knitting has been a strong distraction lately, but it is not part of my Christmas sewing or my Fabulous Pants sewing, so I really need to leave that off till at night in front of the television. The black pants will be finished if it kills me today. I am also planning on finishing up this pants repair for a friend's pair of pants. While cool pants, the seams that the sewer used were way too short, so there are lots of little repairs for me to try to fix up the seams. I am taking most of it to the serger. I also want to make a killer fall meal tonight since the weather is so cold. Today was the first really cold morning, so I am even debating washing the quilt for the last time this season and getting out the down comforter. Hum... I think I need to make a pumpkin pie while I think about it. Test out that crust mojo and see if it is still here!

Jam Session - End of Season Peach, Plum, Fall Pear, Apple

Today I am up and going for a long jam session with Annie! She and I wisely decided to each do some prep work for the session at our own houses. We were hoping to get all the canning in faster than before. Last time we were really flying, and this time with most of the prep finished, we should be able to get most of this done. I am also hoping it is more pleasant out in her part of the bay. The weather for the last week and a half has been in the triple digits and very unpleasant for jam making. The original plan was to make peach with raspberry and cardamon, pear with pinot noir and cinnamon, and then either apple or plum. We decided on apple jelly, trying our hand at jelly for the first time rather than jam. Sadly, though, when I went to the market my favorite plum seller told me this was the last week for them. SO, I decided to tack plum onto our jam making list. We were going to wait until next week for it, but if this is the last week of these wonderful plums, I needed to act. I still have not told Annie. Hopefully she is signed on to the plan! I prepped the peach and raspberry and the plum in the hopes of keeping us on my expanded jam session plans.





Both are already a beautiful color just with the maceration and steep. I cannot wait to see how they look in the jars. The apples have to be prepped at Annie's place, so we can always back out if four jams is too much. We may, however, need more jars. Always need more jars. More pictures of the finished jam tomorrow.

Finding Focus

My entry before the quick recipe posting talked a little about my focus problem. I decided to dedicate myself yesterday to quieting my mind. All things pointed to the need for this, including my friend's twitter stream Tarot card pick. It called for self focus. So, in my attempt to focus, I spent yesterday recouping. I let myself sleep in quite late. I ate breakfast and did not try to multitask while doing it. I kept the music off and the focus on what I was doing in that minute, whether that be sweeping the house, looking at recipes for Monday's canning session, or organizing up the sewing desk. I did all without a ton of distractions from the television or radio. I even sewed on BART sans the headphones. I think it was good for me to pair things down. I felt more focused as the day went on. I took only one student with me at 826 and tutored just one. I focused in on what we alone were doing rather than room scanning as I usually do. Hey old teaching habits seem to die hard. It was nice. I settled in for a night of knitting something for myself. Usually I am working on items for other people or the store, so it was refreshing to just sit down with a piece of something for myself.

I managed to make that pie on Wednesday. It was a true success. I have Hubert Keller to thank for that. He gave me my crust making mojo back. I am keeping his recipe and not letting go of it! It turned out the perfect crust with no fuss and no need to reroll. I could even pick up the crust off the counter without cracking, breaking, or having to scrape it up with the dough scraper. I am in crust heaven!





I have been informed that I must make pumpkin pie next with this crust. I am willing to bend on this since we are almost into October, squarely in pumpkin pie territory.

Today I am trying to stick with the focus, although I have to admit that music is on the stereo. The pants that I am repairing for a friend will be finished up today. The black pants will have the finishing touches on them, and the first good day for photography, I will be trying out my new photographing spot at the new building. Hopefully it works out as well as the old one did at the last apartment. Here is to looking at a focused weekend with a focused week ahead.

Applebutter Recipe

I had a comment on my apple fair entry asking if I ever got my sister's apple butter recipe. I in fact did, and while I answered in the comments area, I thought I should also post up the recipe here. I hope you enjoy it!

My Sister's Apple Butter:

Ingredients:
4 pounds of apples, peeled, cored, rough chopped
2 cups apple cider
3 cups of sugar, less if your apples are really sweet
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1/8 tsp. allspice

Directions:
Place cut apples, cider, and sugar into a crock pot on high for one hour. Turn to low setting, stir, and crack the lid keeping it open with a wooden spoon or similar item. This should allow the steam to evaporate out of the crock pot. Cook on low for around 10 hours, stirring around every once in a while. I cooked mine overnight. Cook until it is reduced to a very thick sauce like consistency. Using a stick blender, blend up the butter until it is like baby food rather than extra chunky applesauce. Add spices to the butter and cook one more hour on a high setting. Pour into properly prepared half pints. Process for ten minutes in a water bath.

I hope you like it, and it works for you!

Focus?

Yesterday I was really unfocused. Today is also shaping up to be the same. I cannot seem to stay on one task and see it through to completion lately. I was hoping to get things more on track today, but I fear it is going down the same road. I did get my desk in order and also plowed through the three months of personal checkbook balancing that needed to be addressed. The desk, I am happy to report, is wonderfully clean now, and the books balanced on the first go. From there things just degraded. I wanted to get some new items ready for photographing this morning and uploading to the shop, but I could not stay on task. I debated making a pie. I debated working on the belt. I picked up a pair of pants and stitched for a bit. I then focused in on some Christmas stuff for family and pattern copying for their gifts. (I am a chronic copier of patterns rather than cutting them out of the paper. I like to have copies rather than have to buy the pattern over again if there is a cutting problem.) Then I went back to the pants and debating pie. Then I decided to get on line and attend the SF Etsy team chat. Then I researched a discontinued pancake mix for my parents.

I was literally all over the place. Seeing as it is noon now, and I have not a lot to show for the day, I think today may wind up the same way. I think the pie has to be made. Who can say no to chocolate pie? Then I am going to focus in on the pants that I have been trying to work on for forever and finish them. Preliminary pictures perhaps for tomorrow's posting. Then I want to work on a pair of repair pants for a Belegarth friend. He needed me to fix some patchwork pants that keep ripping apart. I hope the serger can fix that up. If there is time, then it is off to work on the red work tins. The embroidery for them is gorgeous; they just need to get finished.

Those are the goals. Hopefully I can make them! Hey what is that shiny thing?!

Welcoming Fall

Yesterday I kept waiting for the heatwave to hit that was supposed to move into the area. Luckily, though, the sea breeze kept the heat over the Oakland hills on the other side of town from us. The house stayed delightfully cool for my fall housecleaning madness. I cleaned all surfaces. There was dusting of bookcases and tables, wiping down mirrors, polishing plates (Yes we have to polish our plates due to a reaction between the silverware and stone wear.), cleaning of bathrooms, and laundry in the machines. It was a whir of activity and a banishment of dust clouds. I kept the one last remaining good flower in the arrangement as a last hint of summer in the house. Today, it is still delightfully chilly despite blistering temperatures across the hills. I enjoy bay side living.

The only thing that did not get tackled is this:



I intend to get the desk mess in order today. Entropy is a hard force to fight. Just when you think you have it beaten down, it shows itself somewhere else. It will be great to have a fully cleaned house and work space. Today I am hoping to finish off a pair of pants and perhaps more handwork on a belt. There is also a matter of dessert to be made since the temperature is not hot again. I am looking to make a chocolate pie that I saw in my latest Penzey's Catalogue. It looks really yummy. Hopefully this will also be the end to my crust issues I have had as of late. I will report back to see if a new recipe and method worked better this time rather than the disastrous results I have been having lately. The red work boxes are being made, but are not finished yet. More on those soon. There is also the possibility that I will abandon all this to go and get some more tools for clay working. I am working up some new contraptions in clay and hope to have those out for all to see soon as well.

I am going to get down to work on this desk thing... hopefully it doesn't take all day!

Staying Cool

This weekend I tried to fix the salsa debacle. It went much faster having Dan there to help with all the cutting and chopping of the ingredients. This time I came up with five full pints that are labeled and boxed up in the pantry. I did not get to try it this time, so hopefully when we pop open the first jar, it will be a vast improvement over the non-halved sugar recipe. We also added more hot jalapeno peppers to this batch as well. Hopefully the heat is back in the salsa. We tried the peppers raw, and they were more spicy than the peppers in the first half batch, so here is to hoping for a perfect heat in the full batch. I will report back when we actually open up a jar after finishing the store bought jar in the fridge.

Today is supposed to be very hot around the Bay Area. I am planning on staying as cool as possible around the house for as long as possible. I have pulled out a tank from dance class sessions and a skirt that I can move around easily in. The plan is to clean the house top to bottom before the heat of the day settles in this afternoon. This afternoon I hope to keep cool with some letter writing, recipe copying, and hand sewing. I also hope to get some red work tins worked up this afternoon and hopefully have them photographed for tomorrow to upload on the Etsy Store. Hopefully it is something I can pull off with out much time to sit and realize how hot it is outside. Well I guess I should quit the procrastination and get to the cleaning. Pictures of the tins, hopefully tomorrow!